Chris Matthews found yet another opportunity to cheerlead in the push for same-sex marriage by promoting HBO’s The Case Against 8 and recommending a book by lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson titled Redeeming the Dream. The Hardball host took every opportunity to compliment the two men on their successful effort to overturn Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state of California.
Rejecting any hint of impartiality, Matthews declared Boies and Olson to be “my heroes and I think heroes to the country.” Later on in the conversation, Matthews could not conceive why a conservative–or anyone–might ever oppose gay marriage aside from it being a “cultural thing,” explaining in a mocking voice [MP3 audio here; video below]:
Ted Olson


The Washington Post is quite explicit: It’s a publicity organ for the gay lobby. They put the fight for gay marriage in Virginia on the front page Monday – and on the front page of the Style section. In about 3,000 words of reporting, there’s not a single social conservative named and quoted in it. There's no debate, only the inevitable and "historic" winners.
The Style article was just the latest in a long trail of plaintiff puff pieces headlined “A Virginia family has three loving warriors in the fight for gay marriage.” Style writer Richard Leiby oozed that 16-year-old Emily Schall-Townley bounced into the room in “a spontaneous scene in an aggressively normal Richmond suburb,” as if there’s anything spontaneous about an interview with plaintiffs vetted and selected by gay activists, as Leiby himself explained:
On Wednesday, CNN's daytime coverage of a federal judge's decision on California's Proposition 8 leaned mostly towards those who opposed the voter-approved amendment to the state's constitution, which banned same-sex marriage. When the judge's ruling was released, which found Prop 8 to be unconstitutional, the network went so far to get immediate reaction to the ruling at a "gay" bar in West Hollywood.Don Lemon was the first CNN anchor to bring on guests on the issue 15 minutes into the 12 noon Eastern hour, none other than Gary Spino and Tony Brown, the two subjects of their pro-homosexual parenting documentary "Gary and Tony Have a Baby." Minutes before the two appeared, the network replayed a glowing report by senior political analyst Gloria Borger, which originally aired on June 16, profiling Ted Olson and David Boies who are fighting to overturn Prop 8.
Lemon began his interview of the same-sex couple with a softball question: "So listen, Gary, I want to get you in here. Are you- how are you guys feeling? Are you anxiously awaiting this judge's decision, or what- is it just something that's in the back of your minds now?" He asked a similar question of Brown: "Are you feeling anxiety about this?"
CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger returned to her roots as a slanted journalist on Wednesday's Newsroom with a glowing two-part report on Ted Olson and David Boies, the former rivals in Bush v. Gore who are now fighting to overturn California's Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex "marriage." Borger portrayed their coalition as "a script that could have been written in Hollywood."Anchor T. J. Holmes introduced the first part of the analyst's report just before the bottom of the 1 pm Eastern hour. After noting that closing arguments had begun in the lawsuit against Proposition 8, Holmes stated that the challenge was "the story of two powerhouse lawyers who have turned the partisan divide on its head. Ted Olson, a Republican, and David Boies, a Democrat, famous arch rivals in Bush v. Gore, have now joined together in this fight. It reads like a novel, which may explain why Hollywood had a lot to do with it."
Borger, who, before joining CNN as an analyst in 2007, served as a political correspondent for CBS News, continued on the Hollywood theme: "It's a script that could have been written in Hollywood. The opening shot? A lunch in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and it starts where you might expect, with a Hollywood heavy hitter: director and actor, Rob Reiner." She featured Reiner, a well-known liberal, throughout the first part of her report, as well as Chad Griffin, a former Clinton administration staffer turned activist for same-sex "marriage."
Former Solictor General Ted Olson's Newsweek essay, "A Conservative Case for Gay Marriage," is embarrassing for conservatives -- that is, embarrassing that we had a Solicitor General so willing to publicly use straw-man arguments.
Of course, as it has ever been, when an individual conservative of moderate fame wants some nice press in the mainstream media, he offers up a 'man bites dog' story, to wit, "Neanderthal Conservative Sees the Light [Insert Topic Here]."
Which is not to say a desire for fame is Olson's motivation, particularly; his essay is ardent enough to signal his logic has been overwhelmed and thus it is likely he is sincere, but how many of us, pushed out on a limb of illogic after letting our emotions rule, are rewarded with an essay in Newsweek?
(I daresay even a fashionable liberal, penning "A Liberal Case Against Gay Marriage," couldn't get one.)
Olson lists the "reasons I have heard" against legalizing gay marriage.
He's not a listener.
